Produced by Darleen Dove and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries. [Illustration: _One may look at pictures unchaperoned._] THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE BY SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS AUTHOR OF THE CLARION, AVERAGE JONES, ETC. ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK E. SCHOONOVER GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK _Copyright 1912_ _The Bobbs-Merrill Company_ TO ONE UNKNOWN The only living being who possesses the secret of the strangely clad and manacled body found beneath the cliffs of Cornwall on April 30, 1909, this story, changed in the setting as he will understand, is blindly inscribed. CONTENTS · CHAPTER I—THE BODY ON THE BEACH · CHAPTER II—PROFESSOR KENT MAKES A CALL · CHAPTER III—MY LADY OF MYSTERY · CHAPTER IV—AN INQUIRY · CHAPTER V—ONE USE FOR A MONOCLE · CHAPTER VI—THE RETREAT IN ORDER · CHAPTER VII—SIMON P. GROOT DOES BUSINESS · CHAPTER VIII—RECKONINGS · CHAPTER IX—CHESTER KENT DECLINES A JOB · CHAPTER X—THE INVASION · CHAPTER XI—HEDGEROW HOUSE · CHAPTER XII—THE UNBIDDEN VISITOR · CHAPTER XIII—LOOSE ENDS · CHAPTER XIV—THE LONE FISHERMAN · CHAPTER XV—THE TURN OF THE GAME · CHAPTER XVI—THE MEETING · CHAPTER XVII—CHANCE SITS IN · CHAPTER XVIII—THE MASTER OF STARS · CHAPTER XIX—THE STRANGE TRYST · CHAPTER XX—IN THE WHITE ROOM · CHAPTER XXI—REWARDS THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE CHAPTER I—THE BODY ON THE BEACH Lonesome Cove is one of the least frequented stretches on the New England seaboard. From the land side, the sheer hundred-foot drop of Hawkill Cliffs shuts it off. Access by water is denied; denied with a show of menacing teeth, when the sea curls its lips back, amid a swirl of angry currents, from its rocks and reefs, warning boats away. There is no settlement near the cove. The somber repute suggested by its name has served to keep cottagers from building on the wildly beautiful uplands that overbrood the beach. Sheep browse between the thickets of ash and wild cherry extending almost to the brink of the height, and the straggling pathways along the edge, worn by the feet of their herders, afford the only suggestion of human traffic within half a mile of the spot. A sharp-cut ravine leads down to the sea by a rather treacherous descent.